


and it's plain to see (that we were meant to be)

by cloudysunglasses



Category: Cookie Run (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 11:49:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21243608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudysunglasses/pseuds/cloudysunglasses
Summary: Cyborg's having a bad day.





	and it's plain to see (that we were meant to be)

“I wish I never met you.”

No, that isn’t right. That isn’t quite right.

“You’re the worst person in the world. I wish I never met you. I hope you never get anything you want until the day you die. I hope the day you die is today. I hope you’re never happy.”

No, that isn’t right either. It’s hard, though.

“You’re the worst person in the world. I wish I never met you. Every time I see your face I want to kick you to the ground and grind my heel in that stupid shitty smirk. You’re the worst person in the world. I wish I never met you. Every time you look at me like that makes me hate “

No no no no no.

No no no no no no no no no no.

The eraser won’t work right. It’s been used a lot today, you need to clean it at the end, but you’re too impatient for that, so when all it does is leave smudged gray streaks without managing to wipe what you've written, you erase harder, and harder, and harder, until the page tears and you keep erasing and tear the next page too, and it won’t leave your head, and you’ve already ripped the cover half off when BB Battery’s little ding - noting that it’s begun the charge boost process - breaks you out of your fit.

It really isn’t fair. It really isn’t fair. You’ve never gotten anything you’ve wanted, and that spoiled smug whiny asshole -

It’s hard to remember the good times, when you feel like this, but it doesn’t do you any good to try, either. Trying just makes you take the memories and twist them into something depressing; that time they did something nice for you will never happen again because they're bored of you now, and it didn’t mean anything when it happened for the first time because they're a shithead anyway, and. And you’re spiraling, you guess, but does it matter? It’s not like you’re wrong.

This was a mistake. You begin shredding the paper into tinier and tinier bits, until they’re so small you can’t rip them down any further, and you contemplate grabbing an exacto knife and going further anyway, doing more, but.

Jeez, what’s wrong with you.

BB Battery lets out a hum to let you know that it’s done with the boost, and the lack of an accompanying low power sound means not only that it’s still got plenty of juice, but that you’ve been completely topped up. You honestly wish it didn’t; you don’t feel like being awake anymore, but something about the prospect of deactivating yourself so you lie on the ground motionless as the dead until someone finds you and gives enough of a shit to hook you up to a charging station is just depressing.

Because you want  _ them  _ to do it, because you want them to care about you, but you already know from experience that that doesn’t mean anything, because they used to do that and then they would just leave, and if they stayed.

If they stayed. It was only to do something worse. 

And it didn’t matter, if you were scared, or sad, or afraid. It didn’t matter. You didn’t matter, and you still don’t matter. 

And the alternative is Ion doing that, and. And. And you know you’re something of a shitty parent already, you don’t need to make them clean up your bullshit dramatics too. It’s not really any better for Ion, you guess, if it really was accidental instead of said bullshit dramatics, but you did already admit to being a shitty parent. You don’t have any illusions about that part.

BB Battery unhooks itself from your arm and rests itself on your back, and you just don’t know what to say. It comforts you more than any of the stupid shit your therapist recommended did, just look at where “writing out your feelings” has gotten you, but even as that thought flashes through your mind, you’re already mentally admonishing yourself for it; it’s not their fault you’re enough of an isolated fuckup - no, that’s you spiraling, try again. It’s not their fault Aloe’s the worst person in the world and has no redeeming qualities, and - no, that’s still you spiraling, try again. It’s not their fault you’re the worst person in the world and have no redeeming qualities, and 

Just for the sake of feeling something else, you shove the spiral of the notebook in your metal mouth and rip the metal out with your metal teeth and gnash and gnash and gnash and gnash.

(It didn’t work; there’s no sensors in your mouth right now, because their original arrangement meant they brushed up against each other in a way that caused you endless pain, because they've never been good at the practical side of things like that, they always underestimate how much allowance you’re supposed to give a sensor, and you don’t normally put stuff in your mouth anyway, so when you ripped them out during your last fit you didn’t bother to put them back in again yet. You’re not sure if that’s just because you’ve been lazy and unmotivated lately, or because you’ve been having a lot of fits.)

(You did ruin the notebook. You guess it doesn’t matter.)

You pull BB Battery out from its place behind you and clutch it in your arms, like it’s a teddy bear and not a massive, metal battery. It doesn’t think anything of this, because it’s an inanimate object; it isn’t even animal level. It isn’t even insect level. It isn’t even any of those, because those are bad comparisons to make when it comes to AI, but the point is that it doesn’t understand anything you do or say. It does help you when you need it, though, so you guess it’s already outsmarted them.

Jeez. And there you go again, being a mopey fucking mess. Would’ve been better to have never met them. Would’ve been better to just do what you kind of figured you’d do one day anyway, find a hole to live and make bots in and surround yourself with those and never speak to anyone else ever again. Never speak to them ever again.

And you’re still spiraling, and at this point you’re still lucid enough to figure that much out, and that you were supposed to make a list of things you need people to do when you need help, and that was in the notebook you ruined, and maybe it’s in one of the pages scattered on the floor, and maybe it was in one of the pages you reduced to confetti. No one else is here, anyway, you’re alone in the room and you can wait for someone to check up on you or you can wait for the heat death of the universe, and you know that isn’t being fair, but you know with equal shaky certainty that you’re right.

You go back to ripping paper.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Cyborg?”

oh.

“Cyborg? Are you okay?”

They sit down next to you, clouds of shredded paper puffing into the air, and your strength leaves your limbs with all the ceremony of air rushing out of a popped balloon. 

You try to answer, but the words just stick in your throat. Aloe looks at you and sighs.

"You don't look okay..." and they put their hand on your arm.  “Do you want to...do you want to talk about it?"

You bite your bloodless lip hard enough that maybe it would've bled, if you could still bleed. But you guess you wouldn't have bitten it so hard in the first place, if things were that different. 

You open your mouth and close it again, and open, and close, and open, and close, and now you're just thinking of fish mouths, blup, blup, blup, and  _ now _ you're thinking of the time Aloe showed you a picture of two fish kissing saying that it was the two of you, and now you're thinking about how Aloe's barely kissed you at all since everything happened, even after your memories were restored, and now you just want to scream. 

With great effort, you do not scream.

"You don't ever kiss me anymore," you blurt out instead. You guess it's something. "Or hug me. Or cuddle me. Or anything. We used to hang off each other all the time, but you always - you never - you don't do it the way you used to anymore."

Aloe just looks at you. Their lips part like they're about to say something, but it's like - it's like - now that a few words have fallen out of your mouth, now that the door's opened, now that the valve's turned, the rest can't help gushing out.

"And, and, and. I thought you loved me, but you don't. You don't do any of that stuff, and, a-and, you don't do anything. You just sit by yourself and you don't even care about me. You don't, you  _ DON'T _ , you don't even pretend like you love me anymore. And I don't understand. I don't, I don't, I don't."

Aloe's face crumples, like a paper bag, like they're about to cry.

"Cyborg, that's not true, I -"

“And, and - " you don't let them finish, "and I love you all the time, and I love you every day, and you only love me sometimes, if you love me ever. And I can’t stand it. It makes me want to rip something up. It makes me want to rip YOU up. And I hate when I feel that way, because I don’t actually want to do that, it’s just, it’s just, I’m all messed up inside after what happened and I DON’T know what I’m supposed to do about it!”

And you know what they're about to say, you know it before they open their stupid, stupid mouth.

“I’m so -”

“I don’t want to  _ hear that!” _ Your voice is shriller than you expect, but at the same time, you aren’t sure if you were expecting much of anything. You aren’t sure of much of anything in general. Maybe you’re losing your fucking mind. Maybe you already did.

You don’t even notice how hard you’re gripping BB Battery until it lets out a single warning beep - not in pain, it can’t feel pain, Aloe’s done some dumb shit but not something THAT dumb - but a single warning beep, because you didn’t even notice until now, but you’re gripping it so hard that your fingers are making indents in its chassis, and you’re strong enough now that if you tried, if you really tried, you could rip it open and tear its wires out and shred its electronics until it’s only so much metal confetti. The thought makes you want to cry. 

You put it down.

Maybe that’s what does it. You’re not  _ not  _ self aware, you know you’ve been spiraling, you know you’ve been thinking irrationally, you know you’ve been working yourself up more and more and more and you know you’re supposed to try and seek help when you’re like this, you know if you’re left alone you’ll just make everything worse, but everything is easier said than done and here you are again.

And you’ve already destroyed a notebook, and BB Battery isn’t harmed at all, fixing it so it’s like the dents were never there in the first place would take only a second, but, but, but. You don’t know what’s wrong with you. You put your face in your hand and wail. 

Aloe puts their arms around you, and you don't even think about it, you just tuck your head in their shoulder and sob like a little baby. Maybe that's being unfair to babies. 

“D-don’t  _ say  _ that!” you mutter shakily. "Don't, don't, don't."

"I'm - I mean, I won't. I promise I won't."

"No no no no - " And it's always so hard to say what you mean. No. "You a-always say that. You always say you're sorry." And you want to rip something up, but you've already ruined the notebook, and none of its pages are in your reach from where you're nestled in their arms. You settle for kicking your leg, sending another pile of paper shreds flying. "You a-always say you're sorry, but you never, you never, you never just say I'm  _ wrong!" _ And now the coolant tears are pouring so thickly from your visual input sensors that you can't make out much of anything, and it's weird, it's so weird, because normally your nose would be stuffed up by now, but you don't have a nasal passage to stuff. 

Aloe strokes light circles on your back, and you feel like you're going to die. You feel like you're going to die.

"You're just telling me I'm right," you continue, because you have nothing better to do, and no one else in the world. "You're JUST telling me I'm right, and you don't love me anymore. And you're saying sorry about that and all, but you know I'm right, so you don't, you don't say I'm not. A-and I have to b-beg you to even act like you love me, but you don't, you don't, and you know it, and you don't don't don't, and it makes me want to -"

And your grip on their shirt is so tight it tears, and they're probably really sad about that. They're probably sadder about that than they've ever been about hurting you.

You wipe your eyes with the back of your remaining hand, just to clear the lenses a little, and it's only then that you notice they're crying. 

"Cyborg...Cyborg, I…" and they need to stop for a second to wipe their eyes, too.  "Cyborg, I. I love you more than anything, or anyone. I love you more than, th-than I could ever say, even if I kept saying it over and over for a thousand years." Aloe pulls you closer now, tucks you in their arms, settles their head on your shoulder. You used to sit like this all the time, but not for a long, long while.

They open their mouth like they're about to say more, but you can see them, you can see them, they always get like this when they're sad, and they can't get the words out. And your heart breaks, if it weren't already broken - maybe it's like the notebook paper confetti, maybe it's like what would've happened if you had gotten out the exacto knife and kept cutting after all - because you love them, you love them, you love them, and even if sometimes you're so angry you can't speak, you don't like seeing them unhappy, you love loving them, you love when they love you.

They manage eventually - same way you did, you suppose.

"I know I fucked up. I was - I was so fucked up. What happened was…" and they sit back a bit so they can hold your face in their hands, one cupping each of your cheeks.  "I'm so - and I - I love you, Cyborg. I never want that to be something you have to doubt. And I, and I, I'm so sorry it ever was."

You just stare at them, and your mouth opens without your accord, but it's their turn to interrupt. 

"I'm, I - I know you don't want me to say I'm sorry. I love you, I mean it. I love you all this time, I love you every day, I loved you yesterday and the day before, and I'll love you tomorrow and the day after and the day after and the day after and - and forever. I just wanted to give you spa - "

"I don't  _ want _ space!" you near-shriek, "I don't, I don't, I don't, I've  _ had _ space, I've needed you, I need you, but all you  _ give me _ is space, and that's just an excu - "

"I know, I know," and they cling to you all the harder. But you're clinging to them, too.  "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I, I mean - I love you, I really do, but I'm so bad at it. And I fucked up and I hurt you and I never want to do that again, ever. And, and, I want to do it right. I'm going to do it right. If, if, um." They pull back for a moment to look at you, briefly swipe at their eyes with the back of their hand, and press your foreheads together.  "If, you want me to."

"Of course I want you to, idiot," and you haven't actually ever stopped crying, so nothing's changed on that front. But slowly, hesitantly, a smile blooms amidst your tears.

You don't say anything else. You don't think you need to. Slowly, surely, Aloe smiles right back at you, and their hand finds your hand, and your fingers find the spaces between theirs, and the two of you stay like that for a long, long time.


End file.
